Creativity, creativity, creativity. That was the message we got from George Entwistle as he addressed staff via the medium of the Radio Times and the BBC's internal "ringmain". Going up against Cash in the Attic on BBC1, Entwistle said that the BBC has "one core responsibility – to deliver content of outstanding creative quality whenever and wherever we can". And why would anybody disagree with that? Previously, perhaps, the focus was on showing utter rubbish.

But if the sentiment is unsurprising, what is interesting is that Entwistle felt the need to say it at all. His initial interventions were clearly designed to strike a different tone from the Thompson years. Entwistle is a man who loves content, mostly of the highbrow kind, which means he is prepared to say he prefers Radio 3 to Radio 2, The Archers to EastEnders, Today on Radio 4 to Breakfast – and The Great British Bake Off to MasterChef. Thompson, by contrast, seem happiest talking technology, policy, and strategy – and not offending the programmes or radio stations he didn't like so much.

Strategy, in any case, is perhaps Lord Patten's job now. The chairman has the right sort of connections to navigate the charter and licence fee negotiations – leaving Entwistle the task of closing the gap that had opened up between the BBC's ruling class and its programmers, and perhaps becoming a director general who talks the language of viewers. Well some of them, anyway, for this is the BBC chief who reckons that The Wire would be "in my top five" television shows – fair enough, perhaps, although the acclaimed Baltimore crime drama was hardly top-rating.

In his way, Entwistle seems determined to become the serious programmer-in-chief, working "tirelessly on fixing the things that get in the way of high creative quality". Somebody else who was popular with the staff might have called that "cut the crap", although presumably one thing that makes for better television – more money – is the one thing that the licence fee freeze pretty much rules out. How Entwistle will simplify for programmers lies ahead, but in true BBC style he started with a reorganisation, announcing the departure of Caroline Thomson, the chief operating officer, who was his chief rival for the top job – and reduced the number on the BBC "direction group" from 25 to 12.

The new boss was also keen to tell the Radio Times that the BBC had made "real progress in actively looking for, and finding, great female experts", highlighting Amanda Vickery and Mary Beard as examples, but admitted that the broadcaster's efforts so far were "not enough". He even suggested that the BBC could become a home for women's sport, because the broadcaster cannot afford men's sport now seeing as Sky is prepared to pay £6.5m for each Premier League game. All this immediately puts Entwistle on the spot: today it emerged that Jake Humphrey would be leaving to join BT. Who will replace him as the host of Formula One? If it is not a woman, it could be argued that already the new DG has failed.

Complaining about the BBC is a national sport, but in truth viewers and listeners enjoy extraordinarily good and diverse output from the corporation. It is, after all, the most popular broadcaster by some distance, in both radio and television. The hard part for the new leader will be making a difference, but Entwistle has one early advantage: he can rapidly bring in a new top team with the director of television job vacant, and a controller of radio job widely expected to become so when incumbent Tim Davie moves over to BBC Worldwide. Meanwhile, Lucy Adams, the former director of BBC People, unpopular for having fronted so many strike negotiations, looks set to become his principal operational adviser.

There is plenty also to be said for the new director general to act as a creative leader, but it carries a little risk. The advantage of the more aloof Thompson approach was that he was able to position himself distantly from any controversies on screen – and fly in to resolve crises as they arose, for example by suspending Jonathan Ross following his lapse of taste on Radio 2. But as Greg Dyke found out to his cost, being closely aligned with what's produced can leave a director general responsible for everything that goes out on air, even at 6.07 am. No BBC boss, however clever, can actually manage that.